New Ways of Making Babies: The Case of Egg Donation,
by Cynthia B. Cohen, ed. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1996. 332 pp.

Abstract

The major dilemma for bioethics is choosing an
appropriate method of ethical analysis, one that when applied
to individual cases can illuminate if not resolve vexing
ethical issues for providers and their patients. Two of
these books offer direction in this regard. The framework
Carson Strong adopts and makes a compelling case for in
Ethics
in
Reproductive
and
Perinatal
Medicine:
A
New
Framework is one of modified casuistry. Casuistry,
imported to bioethics by Jonsen and Toulmin, is a practical,
case-based method of ethical decisionmaking. It relies
on comparison between moral factors in a case under consideration
and in paradigm cases with justifications for different
outcomes. The preferred course of action is the one warranted
by the paradigm case that most resembles the case under
consideration. Strong's framework is a modified form
of casuistry because it takes into account social and political
views and allows for, upon occasion, a prioritization of
values across cases.